Two stories, one right, one wrong: narrative, national identity and globalization in Sliding Doors.

Martin-Jones, David

Sliding Doors (Peter Howitt, 1997) was one of several films to emerge in the late 90s that showed two or more versions of the same narrative. It presented alternate incarnations of its protagonist, Helen/Gwyneth Paltrow as though they existed in parallel universes. Yet, despite its slightly unusual dual narrative, the way in which Sliding Doors constructs national identity is hardly original. It uses its two versions of the same story to offer two contrasting views of national identity in 90s Britain, and asks the viewer to choose between them. Should we be in any doubt as to which is the "correct" narrative outcome, the choice is clearly signposted for us by the film. In fact, this device is really only a variation on classical narratives like It's a Wonderful Life (Frank Capra, 1946). As Frank Krutnik (1) has shown, in Capra's film, a specifically weighted choice was offered to American servicemen returning from WWII. National identity was allowed two possible routes, either a return to the small town values of Bedford Falls (the "right' outcome), or the soulless noir landscape of Pottersville (the "wrong" outcome).

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However, although it uses the same technique, Sliding Doors strongly advocates an identity that is far more globally oriented than national. Despite emerging at the time of devolution in Britain (the establishing of separate parliaments in Scotland and Wales) the film is far less concerned with the splintering of British national identity than it is with the relationship between London and the rest of the world. Sliding Doors, then, uses its multiple narrative structure to explore the changing face of British national identity after the development of London as a global city. In fact, by mapping the "right" and "wrong" ways of living in the global city the film proffers an image of a new, transnational identity in post-devolutionary Britain.

This work will illustrate the various ways in which Sliding Doors uses its multiple narrative structure to offer its biased choice of identities, especially through the use of crosscutting, soundtrack, montage sequences, flashback, two contrasting genre styles, two alternative personifications of Paltrow's star persona, and an allegorical use of heterosexual gender roles usually associated with female makeover films. An analysis of these techniques will illustrate the ways in which the alternatives they create have been carefully chosen to coincide with the film's political agenda. It will be seen that, beneath its apparently playful "Cinderella in the labyrinth of time" narrative, Sliding Doors asserts that it is actually the economic conditions provided by the global city that offer the chance of a new identity. Its multiple narrative structure therefore functions as part of a more general renegotiation of national identity in contemporary Britain, a renegotiation brought about by the changes globalization has wrought on the nation, and especially its capital, over the last twenty five years.

I will conclude by briefly examining the same process in two other such films, Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998) and Too Many Ways to be Number One (Wai Ka-Fai, 1997). This will also enable a reconsideration of David Bordwell's recent attempt to group together these and other multiple narrative films, based solely on their formal similarities.

British Cinema

At this point a brief plot synopsis is in order. Sliding Doors is the story of Helen, a young woman living in London, whose identity splits into two separate paths through time. After arriving at work one morning to discover that she has been fired from her job in public relations, Helen attempts to return home on the London Underground. In one story she catches the train, but in the other, she misses it. The rest of the film is concerned with her two simultaneous existences. In one incarnation the Helen that catches the train returns home to find that her boyfriend, Jerry/John Lynch has been cheating on her. She leaves him, and rebuilds her life, aided by James/John Hannah her new love interest. Helen meets James on the tube which her other self failed to catch. After an initial makeover in which she has her hair cut short and dyed blonde, this Helen becomes a successful business woman, running her own PR company. In her other incarnation the Helen that misses the train remains ignorant of Jerry's infidelity, and is forced to work in two rather menial jobs, as sandwich deliverer and waitress. She remains completely unaware of the existence of James. For brevity I shall refer to the two incarnations as those of blonde and brunette Helen.

Sliding Doors has already attracted some critical attention. Two of the most recent edited collections on British cinema, British Cinema in the 90s, and British Cinema Past and Present, contain a number of chapters discussing British cinema's recent renegotiation of representations of national identity in post-Thatcherite, and now, Blairite Britain. (2) Several theorists emphasize how the changing face of the British economy (from an industrial-manufacturing, to a services base) has been examined in cinema. Subsequently, numerous films of the nineties are explored in order to uncover exactly what has happened to our sense of the nation in such a context. As Sliding Doors is a typical film in this respect, it does not pass without comment. Moya Luckett, for instance, states that:

 ... Sliding Doors indicates that national identity requires some
 "authenticity', despite its ultimate endorsement of glamour, the
 superficial and the magical. After all, Gwyneth Paltrow is American,
 and despite her appearance in films like Emma ... and Shakespeare in
 Love as the "quintessentially British" heroine, her star image
 undermines her authenticity. Consequently, Sliding Doors" attempts to
 find the truth of the nation rest on supporting characters who all
 have strong regional identities (James is Scottish; Helen's best
 friend Anna is Irish; and her two-timing fiance, Jerry, is played by
 Irishman, John Lynch). This leaves a vacuum at the centre of the
 nation: in a London where there are no native Londoners. This suggests
 that national identity is always elsewhere, a paradox that seems to be
 echoed in the current efforts of audiences to find the nation in the
 images of British cinema. (3)

In films like Sliding Doors, any sense of a unified nation has dissipated into the image of a regional assembly of identities, apparently constructing a national identity so far "elsewhere" that it encompasses nearly all of the newly devolved countries of the United Kingdom, and even the Republic of Ireland! If we are looking for a traditional sense of "British" identity in Sliding Doors, Luckett's work suggests, it is unlikely that we will find it. Nor is the influence of globalization on this recasting of the nation lost on these contemporary writers. Claire Monk, for instance, points out that many British films of the nineties aim to, "promote a global perception of Britain as a competitive and innovative enterprise economy, thus enhancing its industrial prospects in a global capitalist free market." (4) The reason for the lack of Londoners in the London of Sliding Doors, then, can be seen to be primarily due to the swing from an industrial-manufacturing to a services based economy, and to the nation's subsequent attempts to sell itself anew in the global market place.

However, whilst the above debate functions as an informing backdrop to this essay, I contend that the "vacuum at the centre of the nation" observed in recent writings on British cinema is also indicative of a slightly different view of London contained in Sliding Doors. This apparent absence is only seen as such if we persist in searching for images constructive of a recognisable, British national identity. If we alter our focus somewhat, and engage with the film's portrayal of London as a global city, then rather than an absence of national identity, we find instead the presence of a slightly different type of identity. As we shall see, the film's multiple narrative structure, and the choices it offers, is crucial in negotiating this changing conception of national identity.

London: Global City

As a film based in London, Sliding Doors exists in relation to a great many other films set in the capital over the last twenty-five years. It has particular resonance, however, when viewed in relation to a small number of other films that represent London's role in the global economy. Perhaps the most well known precedent in this respect is, The Long Good Friday (John MacKenzie, 1979). Here plans to redevelop London's Docklands with the help of financial investment from America (plans that went ahead under the Conservative government during the 1980s) are represented in the form of an allegorical gangster thriller. In this case, the troubles in Ireland are seen as the major barrier to such a development of the capital, with the American mafiosi backers pulling out due to the IRA bombing campaign. If we flash forward to the late 1990s, however, the echoes of IRA bomb blasts have been replaced in films like Sliding Doors, by the gentrified splendour of a post-Thatcherite London. Here the changes seen to be immanent in The Long Good Friday have been implemented, the services economy is in full swing, and British foreign policy in Ireland takes a back seat to the selling of a Blairite vision of London.

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In fact, Sliding Doors is not alone in its focus on London as the physical realization of the nation's identity. Several other recent British films have depicted London's services industry as the answer to the decline of communities in various parts of the north of England. Billy Elliott (Stephen Daldry, 2000), for instance, illustrates the move from one to the other in extremely unproblematic terms. The future of its protagonist is assured, despite the ruination brought to his Northern community by the closure of its coal mine, in his move to London to study ballet. Coming as it does after the rather more critical stance on London of two of its immediate predecessors, Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1995) and Brassed Off (Mark Herman, 1996), the upbeat ending of Billy Elliott has much in common with the late 90s, New Labour-styled spin on centralized national identity that is also seen in films like Sliding Doors and Notting Hill (Roger Michell, 1999).

In this context, the dual narrative of Sliding Doors is particularly telling. Its two stories illustrate the right and the wrong ways to live in this new global city. It maps the spaces of London, providing two alternate routes to a successful, and an unsuccessful, lifestyle in the global city. In this way the new "do's and don'ts" of "national" identity are played out as a choice between two different, economically defined classes, rendered as lifestyles. This can be seen in more detail with reference to some sociological evidence.

In The Global City, Saskia Sassen describes the economic situation facing the inhabitant of the global city as one polarized by the emergence of the services industry. She states:

 Major growth industries show a greater incidence of jobs at the high-
 and low-paying ends of the scale than do the older industries now in
 decline. Almost half the jobs in the producer services are lower-
 income jobs, and half are in the two highest earnings classes ....
 other developments in global cities have also contributed to economic
 polarization. One is the vast supply of low-wage jobs required by high
 income gentrification in both its residential and commercial settings.
 The increase in the number of expensive restaurants, luxury housing,
 luxury hotels, gourmet shops, boutiques, French hand laundries, and
 special cleaners that ornament the new urban landscape illustrates
 this trend. (5)

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This is exactly the polarity between the high and the low paid sectors of the producer services economy which is explored in the double narrative structure of Sliding Doors. On the one hand, blonde Helen maintains her position within the higher end of the income bracket. With a start-up loan from the National Westminster bank she sets up her own PR consultancy firm, and establishes herself as a self-employed member of the global city's elite. Working in public relations she provides a lucrative producer service, one of several that is increasingly common due to the global city's centralization of the service industry in London. (6) Moreover, her first major contract is the opening of James" best friend Clive's gentrified, riverside, "expensive restaurant". This choice of location is used to illustrate both the opportunities available to service industry workers like blonde Helen, and the possibilities that exist for the high income workers of the global city to establish their identity through the demonstration (one might be forgiven for saying, the purchasing) of good taste. (7) In the global city, we are shown, the right economic choices lead almost inevitably to the consumption of the lifestyle enjoyed by blonde Helen.

Brunette Helen, by contrast, is reduced to a position of subservience to the more highly paid end of the producer services industry. Unable to find a job for which she is qualified, her only option is to take a lower level wage as a waitress. Thus the film locates her in one of the many low wage jobs that the proliferation of expensive restaurants necessitates. In order to make ends meet moreover, she finds that she needs two jobs, as the cost of living in the global city is so high. To this end she takes the position of sandwich deliverer. This is yet another type of occupation on the increase in the global city, again due to the increase in demand brought about by population intensive, high income "residential and commercial gentrification". (8) The film drives home its message, that this need not be so, and that brunette Helen could enjoy another lifestyle altogether if she so desired, by situating her in the same sandwich shop that she used to frequent when she was herself employed in the commercial business district.

The film's split narrative, then, creates a binary that represents perfectly the division between the "haves" and "have-nots" that now exists in the global city. This is a situation, the paralleling of these narratives suggests, in which it is just as easy to be one as it is to be the other. Nowhere is this message more apparent than in the montage sequence which intercuts between blonde Helen overseeing the opening of Clive's restaurant and brunette Helen waitressing in a different, but comparable restaurant. The film's crosscutting between these locations is accompanied by Jamiroquai's "Use the Force", the upbeat lyrics of which include the lines, "I must believe ... I can be anyone", and, "I know I'm gonna get myself ahead". Identity in the global city is what you make it, the film stresses, the financial support structures are in place for anyone wishing to be their own boss, and the services industry provides sufficient opportunity for a wealthy, glamorous lifestyle.

Flashback

The film's self-conscious play with time is used to emphasize which of the two choices it considers to be the "right" one. In particular, its use of flashback is integral in creating this bias.

Although the two incarnations of Helen are kept separate throughout the majority of its narrative, they are finally brought into contact at the end. The conclusion sees both Helens involved in serious accidents and taken to hospital, where blonde Helen dies, and brunette Helen survives. As blonde Helen dies, brunette Helen has a flashback in which she sees three distinct images of the city. These are, the bridge on which she and James made-up just prior to the accident, the American style diner where they first went on a date, and, finally, the train on which they first met. The existence of these displaced memories within the universe of brunette Helen suggests a very peculiar action that is taking place concerning the construction of identity in time. Their presence can be explained using Deleuze's theory of the labyrinth of time.

Deleuze developed his labyrinthine model of time partly through his exploration of Henri Bergson's concept of duration in relation to cinema, (9) and partly from the writings of Jorge Luis Borges. Of the labyrinth Deleuze states, "the straight line as force of time, as labyrinth of time, is also the line which forks and keeps on forking, passing through incompossible presents, returning to, not-necessarily true pasts." (10) The labyrinthine model is perhaps easiest to understand as the existence of an infinite number of virtual, parallel universes. In these universes are played out the myriad possibilities of every different fork taken through the labyrinth of time. Each bifurcation of the pathway through the labyrinth leads to two "incompossible presents", two possible, and possibly contradictory, outcomes to any one situation. This is not, however, a paradox, as the potential for both outcomes always exists virtually, and are always both played out, albeit in different universes, in their respective actual forms.

Anyone gaining an intuition of their existence in this labyrinth of time will, according to Bergson, "compare himself to an actor playing his part automatically, listening to himself and beholding himself playing". (11) Should this person attempt to change their identity in the present a different path through the labyrinth of time will open up before them. As a consequence, or more accurately, simultaneously, their past becomes contingent--based upon the actions they perform in the present--or, to put it another way, "not-necessarily true".

This labyrinthine sense of self can be applied to the curious happenings of the film's ending. The memories of blonde Helen's life which brunette Helen experiences are a representation of the past that she might have had. The appearance of these memories allows her to make decisions for her future based upon a past which now becomes contingent, or not necessarily true. At this point she sends Jerry away, armed with a new resolve based upon memories from the past of her blonde self, and becomes determined to make the past a different story. These events suggest a labyrinthine realigning of time for brunette Helen, from the present, backwards. This is evident in the order in which the places occur in the flashback she receives (from bridge, to diner, to train) as though blonde Helen's story line was running backwards to the point at which they initially split when boarding the tube. Thus brunette Helen's past is realigned with that of blonde Helen with the arrival of her memories. Brunette Helen, realising that the past which she has lived is not-necessarily true, acknowledges through her actions in the present that many possible pasts exist, and that she is one of many incarnations of her labyrinthine self.

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This labyrinthine self is further reinforced by the events that accompany brunette Helen's departure from the hospital. As she meets James for the first time in her brunette incarnation, she correctly finishes his Monty Python catchphrase for him, that which, in her blonde incarnation she had incorrectly presumed would be: "Always look on the bright side of life". In the quirky world of 90s man, James, however, it turned out to be: "Nobody expects the Spanish inquisition". Her knowledge of James" quirk illustrates that she is now fully in touch with her other past, and has the ability to manufacture a future for herself that will make the past that was, not necessarily true.

It would initially appear from this reading that it is the labyrinth of time that actually provides the magical quality necessary for brunette Helen to learn from the memories she receives from the dying blonde Helen. Yet this Deleuzian take on the film is only half the story. In fact, the labyrinth of time is used by Sliding Doors as something of a McGuffin. It initially suggests that blonde Helen's success is due to her chance meeting with James, the point at which fate causes her life to split in two. However, her rise to success in the global city is actually shown to be the result of the choices she makes after this chance encounter. Thus, whilst the city is depicted as a space where the chance for success exists in a way that suggests an initial similarity with the labyrinth of time, the film ultimately argues that success in the global city is not actually determined by fate, but by the actions of those who, like blonde Helen, make their own chances.

With this view of the film in mind, the flashback at the ending of the film appears much more obvious in its intent. It is not solely an exploration of the possibility of self-creation offered by chance in the labyrinth of time. Rather, the gentrified bridge, diner and tube station of blonde Helen's memory are the film's most direct expression of the map of London that it advocates for a successful life in the global city.

Star Maps

The map offered by the flashback ensures that blonde Helen's narrative is promoted as the route to success in the global city. This map, moreover, is aimed at the two different audience demographics present in the cast of this Anglo-American co-production. These are, both the devolved Britons of the late nineties, and the international, but specifically, east coast, trans-Atlantic viewer. Through the characters it portrays, and the audiences it targets, then, the film is able to refigure national identity in late 90s Britain as a meeting of the global and the local.

In its recourse to the regional cast of characters, the ensemble that led Luckett to conclude that the nation was "elsewhere", Sliding Doors appeals to Britain's devolved provincials, be they from the beleaguered ex-manufacturing communities of the North of England, the newly devolved nations of Scotland and Wales, or even from neighboring Ireland. If you wish to enjoy life in the global city, it illustrates, your identity does not have to be established through interaction with an English, or even a British, national past. According to Sliding Doors, identity in London is no longer determined by its status as national capital, rather, it is a city with links, and more importantly, with an identity, that hails from "elsewhere". Indeed, as the Irish and Scottish characters show through their interaction with the American star, Paltrow, the global city is almost a postmodern fantasy space in which all national pasts are somehow forgotten. Moreover, through Paltrow, the film's Blairite vision of London also aims at the American market. The American star's presence is used to court an international viewer who may be persuaded to visit, or even to relocate, to London. In these ways, and in order to appeal to these audience demographics, national identity is thus refigured as a nexus of the global and the local.

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To further its appeal, Sliding Doors firmly locates blonde Helen's narrative in certain newly gentrified parts of London. These settings offer a vision of the global city that performs both as advertising for the lucrative tourist market, and as a sales pitch to the transnational worker. Tourism has been one of London's "fastest growing service industries" (12) since the early 80s, both increasing the demand for such services as the expensive riverside restaurant, and, consequently, increasing the number of people in part-time, semi-permanent jobs at the lower end of the income scale (e.g., those waitressing in these restaurants). The film illustrates, then, both the consequences of tourist revenue for would-be global city workers (that they can either get a lot of it, or very little of it, depending on the economic route they follow) and, to the would-be tourist, exactly what is on offer to the holiday-maker in London.

However, the tourist images that we see in Sliding Doors are not the typical tourist image we have come to expect of London based films, even though these images are still prevalent in several other contemporary films. For instance, the establishing shots of Trafalgar Square and the merry pearly kings and queens so beautifully satirized in Trainspotting are noticeably absent. In this case, the film does not aim to sell what is specifically different about London, its culturally specific tourist attractions, its history or its heritage. Rather, it focuses on those aspects that establish London as comparable with other global cities. What is sold is not cultural specificity, or a sense of an exotic national identity peculiar to England, but rather, the lifestyle of the young, transnational professional of the global city. It is for this reason that the film goes out of its way to choose locations that demonstrate the overhaul that occurred in London during the 1980s and 90s. From its expensive restaurants to its converted waterfront warehouse bars, the film reassures the international viewer, there are as many amenities here as can be found in any other global city. It is also for this reason that the native Londoners, the authentic identity of manufacturing Britain are "elsewhere" in this film, their authenticity being contrary to the image of "anywhereness" that a global city needs to represent.

The two different views of Gwyneth Paltrow's star persona that the film offers are also used to illustrate the changing face "national" identity in transnational London. Whilst entirely accurate, Luckett's point, that Paltrow's star status undermines any sense of authenticity she might bring to her role as a young Englishwoman, is actually not in any way detrimental to the film's aims. In fact, as Christine Geraghty has shown, the multiple narrative of Sliding Doors can be viewed as an expression of the added qualities Paltrow's star status enables her to bring to her performance of an English woman. Geraghty notes that, as brunette Helen, Paltrow conforms to the "manners, restraint and control" (13) we would expect of an English lady in a heritage film. However, as blonde Helen she brings her star status to the role as well, adding a touch of what is conventionally thought to be American glamour. The difference between the two performances can similarly be seen to represent the difference between a pre- and a post-Thatcherite sense of identity in London.

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As Geraghty points out, Paltrow's transformation is most evident in the montage sequences where "we are invited to look [at] rather than listen" (14) to Helen. Of these sequences, the decoration of her new office is perhaps the most interesting in its selling of the city's spaces through Paltrow's star status. In this elliptical sequence, whilst painting the walls of the office, blonde Helen is depicted in a series of sweaters (grey-green and blue) that match the emerging decor she paints. Thus Paltrow's transformation, from dowdy English woman to glamorous American star is reflected back at her from the very walls of the city. This interaction suggests at once the transformation that has occurred in London over the last two decades with the influx of American money, (15) and, once again the possibilities of self-creation that the city makes possible. Paltrow's transformation thus serves as an allegory for the transformation of London, from dowdy English lady, to the American style "dame" (16) of the global city. For this reason, the lack of authentic, English characters in Sliding Doors bears witness less to the "elsewhere" of national identity in the services economy, than it does to the transformation of London's identity that it has facilitated.

Paltrow's star persona is also a direct draw because it has become associated with London's nearest neighbouring global city, New York. Due to her New York upbringing and her portrayal of several New York based characters, she is rapidly becoming synonymous with a certain, elite, east coast breed of American. For instance, around the same time as Sliding Doors Paltrow played characters in several films set in New York, including Great Expectations (Alfonso Cuaron, 1997) and A Perfect Murder (Andrew Davis, 1998). Since Sliding Doors the link between her own cultured New York upbringing and the characters she seems best suited to playing has become more explicit. In The Talented Mr. Ripley (Anthony Minghella, 1999), for instance, she plays wealthy Park Avenue socialite on extended vacation in Europe, Marge Sherwood. Similarly, in The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001) she plays languid upper east side intellectual, Margot.

The multiple narrative is used to show that the correct way to live in the global city is to follow the entrepreneurial life led by blonde Helen. Hers is the lifestyle that matches that of Paltrow's star persona. The incorrect way to live, by contrast, is the dowdy life of unhappy, brunette Helen, whose aspect clearly clashes with Paltrow's star persona. In the "right" narrative, Paltrow most clearly fits in with the film's view of London. In the "wrong" one, as Geraghty's work suggests, brunette Helen represents a more traditionally "English" sense of identity, and as such is a little out of touch with the glamour of the new global city. Finally in this respect, the presence of American actress Jeanne Tripplehorn, playing the other major female character, serves to further emphasize the normality of American professionals working in London's commercial centre. After all, her character, Lydia, is able to move effortlessly between jobs in London and America.

Melodrama vs Romantic-Comedy

The fact that the corporate video package of blonde Helen's successful narrative is sold as a romantic-comedy (as opposed to, as David Bordwell notes, (17) the melodrama of the dowdier story of brunette Helen) only serves to make it all the more seductive. The presence of James in blonde Helen's narrative ensures that her transformation into a successful businesswoman is all the more appealing by conflating entrepreneurial success with a successful romance. The ending of the film is, once again, exemplary in this respect. The final flashback portrays not only the economic route to blonde Helen's success, but also the narrative of her romance with James. The images recap their meeting on the tube, their first date in the diner, and both their first kiss in the shadow of, and James" declaration of love on, the bridge. James, in fact, is the catalyst behind most of the life changing decisions made by blonde Helen. It is he who first suggests that she start her own company, he who shows her how the leisured lifestyle provided by London's new, gentrified, riverside pubs and restaurants can be enjoyed, and he who introduces her to Clive, whose restaurant opening furnishes her first contract. Without James" influence, brunette Helen, the control version of this lifestyle experiment, remains a relative nobody.

This story of a woman's makeover falls within a tradition that includes such films as Sabrina (Billy Wilder, 1954) and Pretty Woman (Garry Marshall, 1990). In these films the power behind the makeover is often shown to be the financially astute man lurking in the background. Whilst this is also true of Sliding Doors, its representation of gender roles is still illuminating in what it illustrates about its context. For instance, as Dina M Smith (18) demonstrates of Sabrina, the romance plot of many Cinderella films function as thinly veiled political allegories. In the case of Sabrina, the love affair between rags to riches Sabrina/Audrey Hepburn and corporate tycoon Linus Larabee/Humphrey Bogart stands in for Europe's makeover by American investment in the postwar period. In Sliding Doors by contrast, the extra dimension to the rom-com narrative is added by the gendered representation of London's services economy as the blonde and brunette incarnations of Helen.

With Britain's manufacturing industry previously coded as masculine in such iconic British films as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960), it was little surprise that the emergent services industry, with its emphasis on administrative and clerical professions, would come to be represented as feminine. It was, after all, to address the crisis of traditional notions of masculinity caused by this shift in emphasis that so many British films of the nineties dealt with men adapting to this new environment--e.g. Brassed Off, The Full Monty (Peter Cattaneo, 1997) and Billy Elliott. For this reason, whilst films like Billy Elliott go out of their way to reassure the audience of its protagonist's masculinity as he enters the feminizing environment of the services industry, Sliding Doors deliberately foregrounds the femininity of the young professional in the global city. Here the female protagonist represents not only the growing number of women working in the service industry, but also the services industry itself. Whilst blonde Helen shares the same reliance on her man as the female leads of Cinderella films like Sabrina and Pretty Woman, as a representative of the services based economy the film uses the influence exerted on her by James to stress that the power behind this industry is, whilst still patriarchal, not in any way as interfering as it was when the manufacturing economy was booming.

Noticeably, blonde Helen's romance with James only really blossoms once they are on level terms career-wise. In new London, their romance illustrates, the entrepreneur may want to be prompted in the direction of the small business venture, as Helen is by James, and they may want to make use of their contacts in the services industry, as Helen does of James" friend Clive. However, they do not have to act unless it is in their own interest. Thus the ideal man in Sliding Doors acts as a metaphor for the style of government under which the global city of London has emerged in the last twenty years. He is a supportive, but not commanding influence over the small businesswoman.

It is worth remembering, however, that the image of national identity offered by the "right" narrative of Sliding Doors is not unique amongst British films of the late 90s. For instance, due to its desire to sell an up-market image of the global city, the casting of Sliding Doors depicts a whitewashed London that denies its ethnic and racial complexity. This is the same racially suspect gentrification of the population that is also seen in Notting Hill. As though taking its cue from Sliding Doors, Notting Hill's depiction of the nation through its regional characters (the benevolent English shopkeeper, the Irish thief and the Welsh dimwit) again speaks as much of a nationless identity in the global city as it does of devolved "British" national identity. Moreover, through its vision of a London in which even the most fusty of travel bookstores is fully equipped with the latest security cameras, and where all parks have been transformed into locked, private gardens, (19) Notting Hill represents a very similar London to that of Sliding Doors. Indeed, its final image, of a contented, pregnant Roberts relaxing in her private park, illustrates much the same use of the star as draw which Sliding Doors creates through Paltrow. What sets Sliding Doors apart from its British contemporaries, however, is the way its multiple narrative structure appears to offer this view of national identity as though it were a choice that the viewer has come to of their own accord.

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Conclusion

During the late 90s several others films emerged with a dual or triple narrative structure. These included, from Hong Kong, Too Many Ways to be Number One (Yat goh chi tan dik daan sang), the German film, Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt), the French-Australian co-production, Me Myself I (Pip Karmel, 1999), from France, Epouse Moi (Harriet Marin, 2000), and from America, The Family Man (Brett Ratner, 2000). At present the only attempt to analyze these recent films as a genre is David Bordwell's article, "Film Futures." Citing as predecessors such literary works as Charles Dickens" A Christmas Carol, and O. Henry's short story "Roads of Destiny", Bordwell concludes that it is "folk psychology, the ordinary processes we use to make sense of the world" (20) that determines the simplified nature of these narratives. Bordwell then proceeds to outline seven of the "strategies characteristic of certain traditions of cinematic storytelling" (21) that have been used to shape the narratives of films like Sliding Doors. Most importantly for this work is the fifth category, "Forking Paths will often run parallel", (22) in which he notes that the conventional use of parallel plots is brought to the fore in these multiple narrative films. As we have seen in relation to Sliding Doors, it is primarily through this use of parallelism that the choice between national identities is created.

However, although Bordwell's article is extremely useful in the way it pulls together films from such diverse contexts, his approach leads him to some rather ahistorical conclusions regarding the way their narratives function. In fact, Bordwell's focus on genre characteristics ensures that he never really gets to grips with the complex intertwining of class, gender and national identity that occur in these multiple narratives films. As we have seen in Sliding Doors the various narrative devices Bordwell identifies are used to construct its biased choice of national identities.

Indeed, all these multiple narrative films can be seen to create a choice of national identities, with the choice rendered differently each time, depending on the context from which the film emerged. Although there is not room here to go into any great detail, two brief examples can illuminate how different national contexts can create different manifestations of this same process. If we consider Run Lola Run and Too Many Ways to be Number One, although they both use their multiple narratives to tell two or three different stories, they offer very different choices, due to the specific contexts of their respective productions.

Too Many Ways to be Number One was produced in 1997, the year Hong Kong was handed back to China after one hundred years as a British protectorate. The two stories it offers, of a possible future on mainland China (in which the protagonist dies) and of a more successful trip to freemarket Taiwan (where he doesn't), illustrate the dilemma faced by the population of Hong Kong at this historical juncture. In this respect it is a film that could be productively analyzed alongside Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China series, John Woo's gangster films of the 80s and early 90s, and numerous other films like Boat People (Ann Hui, 1982), Hong Kong, 1941 (Liang Puzhi, 1984), and Homecoming (Yan Hao, 1984). As critics like Julian Stringer (23) and Li Cheuk-to (24) have shown, these films use different characters to examine the pros and cons of staying or leaving Hong Kong after the handover, a device which Too Many Ways to be Number One extends to its multiple narrative either/or. Thus, although its multiple narrative does offer the typical choice of national identities that characterizes the genre, due to its context of production this choice does not have the same emphases we find in Sliding Doors.

Run Lola Run, for its part, shares similarities with both of the above, but again it plays these out in a slightly different way due to its context of production. Like Sliding Doors it also sees national identity as a choice between private enterprise (figured here as gambling and black market smuggling) and an outdated reliance on the nation (here represented by an unsupportive father/banker). However, this time the city is not seen to be internationally connected through a network of global cities, but through the global rave culture already associated with Berlin's annual techno festival. Moreover, like both the above films, Run Lola Run also functions in much the same way as many other films from its national cinema. As Eric Rentschler notes, many such post-Wall films of the German Cinema of Consensus have been criticised for avoiding, "the messy complications of post-wall reality, thematics like right-wing radicalism, chronic unemployment, or the uneasy integration of the former GDR into the Federal Republic." (25) Run Lola Run similarly denies the existence of any such problems, and instead provides a unifying vision of Berlin. This effect is most obviously achieved through Lola's running figure, which links together affluent areas of the old West Berlin with strategically chosen areas of newly gentrified East Berlin. (26) Instead of addressing national differences, its multiple narrative illustrates the supposedly right and wrong ways of obtaining commercial success in the capital.

All three films, then, use their multiple narratives to deal with changes to national identity brought on by a recent de- or re-unification. However, they all do so slightly differently. Sliding Doors emphasizes the global/local nexus of identity in London in order to avoid the problems of post-devolutionary Britain, Too Many Ways to be Number One speculates on the possible ramifications of the immanent reunification with China, and Run Lola Run denies the failure of a newly unified present to deal with the recently divided past. As we have seen from these examples, films in this emergent genre all share the same characteristic, of using the multiple narrative structure to offer a biased choice between different national identities. However, the way in which this manifests itself is different in each film. For this reason, further approaches that attempt to group these films together as a genre should also consider the ways in which they differ, due to the different national contexts from which they emerged.

NOTES

1 Frank Krutnik, "Something More than Night", in, David B. Clarke, (ed.), The Cinematic City (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 83-109.

2 See, amongst others, in Robert Murphy (ed), British Cinema in the 90s (London: BFI, 2000), Moya Luckett, "Image and Nation in 1990s British Cinema", 88-99, Robert Murphy, "A Path Through the Moral Maze", pp. 1-16, and Claire Monk, "Men in the 90s", pp. 156-186. Also in Justine Ashby & Andrew Higson (eds), British Cinema Past and Present (London: Routledge, 2000), Julia Hallam, "Film, Class and National Identity", pp. 261-273.

3 Moya Luckett, "Image and Nation in 1990s British Cinema", in, Robert Murphy (ed.), British Cinema of the 90s (London: BFI, 2000), 88-99, 98.

4 Claire Monk, "Underbelly UK: The 1990s underclass films, masculinity and the ideologies of "new" Britain", in, Justine Ashby & Andrew Higson (eds.), British Cinema Past and Present (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 274-287, p. 284.

5 Saskia Sassen, The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 9.

6 Sassen, p. 12.

7 Sassen makes this point by drawing on, N. Thrift & P Williams (eds), Class and Space (London: Macmillan, 1987), in Sassen, p. 267.

8 Sassen, p. 281.

9 Gilles Deleuze, Cinema 1: The Movement-Image (London: Athlone, 1983), chapters 1 and 4, and Deleuze, Cinema 2: The Time-Image (London: Athlone, 1985), chapters 3 and 5.

10 Deleuze, Cinema 2, p. 131.

11 Deleuze, Cinema 2, p. 79.

12 Anthony D. King, Global Cities: Post-Imperialism and the Internationalization of London (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 124.

13 Christine Geraghty, "Crossing over: performing as a lady and a dame", Screen, 43:1 (2002), pp. 41-56, p. 53.

14 Geraghty, p. 55.

15 Sassen, p. 265.

16 Geraghty, p. 54.

17 David Bordwell, "Film Futures', Substance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism, Issue 97, 31:1 (2002), pp. 88-104, p. 101.

18 Dina M. Smith, "Global Cinderella: Sabrina (1954), Hollywood, and Postwar Internationalism", Cinema Journal, 41: 4 (2002), pp. 27-51.

19 For a much fuller analysis of this film and its depiction of London, see, Charlotte Brunsdon, "London Films: From Private Gardens to Utopian Moments", Cineaste, 26: 4 (2001), pp. 43-6.

20 Bordwell, p. 90.

21 Bordwell, p. 91.

22 Bordwell, pp. 96-7.

23 Julian Stringer, "Your Tender Smiles Give Me Strength", Screen 38: 1 (1997), pp. 25-41.

24 Li Cheuk-to, "The Return of the Father", in, Nick Browne (ed.), New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 160-179.

25 Eric Rentschler, "New German Cinema to Post-Wall Cinema", in Scott MacKenzie & Mette Hjort (eds), Cinema and Nation (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 260-277, p. 62.

26 Claudia Mesch, "Racing Berlin: The Games of Run Lola Run", in, M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture, 3:3 (2000). http://www.media-culture.org.au/0006/berlin.html (11/5/03), p. 3.

Dr. David Martin-Jones is Lecturer in Film Studies at St Andrews University, Scotland. He is currently writing a book on Deleuze and national identity in time travel narratives. He has articles on Scottish Cinema forthcoming in The Journal of British Film and Television and Screen.